


Neighbours Before The House

by MorganMacCallum



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Damian Wayne is a Little Shit, Damian Wayne-centric, Damian has the personality of a feral cat, Damian has unaddressed trauma that we are gonna break down through force, F/M, League of Assassins is just not a good place to raise a child Talia, Marinette is doing her best but doesn't know how to deal with feral assassin friend, Protective Damian Wayne, Talia is doing her best but still not the best parent, The League of Assassins (DCU)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24133483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganMacCallum/pseuds/MorganMacCallum
Summary: The task was simple. First person out of the museum was his target. After that, he was free to assassinate on his own. Had it been anyone but her, it would have taken him no effort. Instead he stood there unable to kill her, and wondering since when had he become human.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Comments: 67
Kudos: 346





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First attempt at writing this kind of scenario. Thankfully I have both survived terrorist attacks in Egypt and survived the terrible trains of Paris. You get to experience both.

Killing is easy. It is so easy that often times people are not aware when they do it, the ants beneath their feet barely worth acknowledgement and the snail’s death only noticed after its been stepped on. Animals are hunted on the regular and farmed even more so, and humans were just as susceptible to death as any other creature. Often times, they were more inclined to die because they strolled carefreely into dangerous situations. And they held grudges; that part was not difficult to forget.

Sometimes, humans killed simply for the sake of killing. They could make up whatever excuse they wanted, but it was obvious to see.

Killing was Damian’s job, and he did it well.

There was no plan to kill that day, no designated target, rather a lesson to be taught. The first person that passed through the doors of the Egyptian Museum that he could see from his window would be killed.

A simple lesson, really. He would have to get the person right, he would have to track them, memorise their routine, and then kill them without anyone spotting him. He would be doing it alone, no assistance, and once he succeeded, he would be sent on solo missions for greater targets. Politicians, royalty, celebrities. Whoever hired the League of Assassins, really. He did not get to choose who to kill, he only did it. And when it was done, he would find somewhere to eat and wait for the next orders.

Tourists seldom came to Egypt in the heat of summer, the temperatures far too powerful for most to survive. He had struggled through the Sahara and had seen one person set a frying pan on the sand and cook an egg. The egg did not taste very pleasant, the dusty sand drifting into it with no struggle.

Still, there was the occasional tourist that thought it the perfect time; underestimating the heat with a great deal of ignorance. No one truly believed 52 Celsius was hot until they stepped into it. It was almost funny, but he was not the sort to laugh.

With his arm leaning against the window, eyes watching the doors, he found himself squinting slightly as he saw movement near the exit. He anticipated that there would be a large tour group leaving since he had seen one entering earlier in the afternoon; escaping the worst of the sunlight. He disliked crowds at the best of times, but more so since it meant it would be difficult to spot his target.

The doors were pushed with a sudden great force and a woman stumbled out, falling to the ground as she tripped over her shoelaces. Not very bright, then, and certainly an easy target with such ridiculously bright pink trousers.

He watched her stand up again and noted how small she was. Smaller than him, from what he could tell, and it quickly registered in his mind that she was not a woman but a girl.

‘More gullible.’ He mused, noting her appearance. Pink trousers were difficult to forget, but over that she wore a long black dress with the more traditional patterns which quickly covered the trousers one she stood up properly, and a red hijab. He could not tell from such a distance whether she was local or a tourist, suspecting tourist for her lack of care for exposed legs and the fact that she was carrying what looked like a school bag.

He would have to waste no time in following her. He did not know whether she stayed in the city or if she would travel out, and he was quick to escape his watch tower.

Due to her height, she was difficult to follow on her own, but her father made it significantly easier for him to keep up. The father appeared to be French, not speaking with the Tunisian accent, but the mother was of foreign ethnicity. None of them were local, and they were part of the tour group. Moreover, they were entering the tour bus.

Damian had two options. He could sneak onto the tour bus and follow them that way, or he could get the identity of the bus and try to locate its route. There was the chance of getting caught on the bus, no matter how slim, but if he tried to track the bus route he was just as unlikely to find it. After all, with the situation in Egypt being what it was, the travel route had to be changed regularly and places were skipped. He was not allowed to lose track of his target; that would count as a failure.

There was a bonus to being young, and that was that his gender was not immediately noted. Slipping on a green scarf, borrowed from a stall and never noticed, he melted into the crowd of tourists as a little girl. With his slightly paler skin and green eyes, he could easily be thought of as the daughter of one of the tourists; so long as no one questioned it.

The tour guide never noticed him as he slipped into the middle of the bus, choosing the window seat and, in a brief moment of basic humanity, turned on the air conditioning. It was an extremely uncomfortable day and the building he hid in had no air conditioning. Sweat had long since become a new skin on him, and he loathed it. He loathed the feeling of filth at the best of times, but this was the worst of times. His eyes only closed for a moment before he was interrupted.

“Excuse me.” He opened his eyes, willing himself into a neutral expression instead of the irritation he felt. “Can I sit here?”

He recognised the red scarf and black dress. It was his target.

“O-oh, yes, of course.” A gentler voice would ease her nervousness, lighter than his own gravelly tones. The girl lit up like a Christmas tree and sat right next to him, practically vibrating with repressed energy.

“I didn’t see you earlier, which is weird because I thought I had talked to everyone in the group already.”

“Ha, yes well I hid away at the beginning. I get nervous around people.” He lied, pulling gently on the edges of the scarf and avoiding eye contact. She flustered immediately.

“Oh no! I’m not making you nervous, am I! I’m really sorry for bothering you! I was glad to see someone my age and got really excit- I’ll be quiet now.” Her shoulders were slanted upwards, slamming her hands firmly into her thighs, wide-eyed terror making her look anywhere else. He could use their similar age as a chance to get closer and, when the time was right, take her down.

“It’s alright.” He said with raised hands. “I thought I would be the only girl around here as well. I’m glad to see that I was wrong.” A nervous smile pulled onto her lips that turned into a large grin.

“This is the first time I’ve been to Egypt. I’m actually from Paris.” She was scratching the back of her head, and he could see that she had similarly dark hair to him. The hand was flung forward and he instinctively tensed. He kept his hand away from the hidden weapon and was glad she had not spotted it. “I’m Marinette! It’s nice to meet you!”

He did not care for her name but took her hand anyway and shook it. Despite the heat, it was not clammy. In fact, she showed no signs of exhaustion, but she had been in the museum before then so she would not be.

“You can call me Qamar. I’m glad to meet you.”

“Qamar’s a nice name.” It was a shame it was not his, but he smiled politely anyhow.

Marinette was the talkative sort. Once she started talking, she would never stop, and sometimes even forgot to breathe. He had seen her pause to breathe at least three times on the journey and was both amazed and horrified by the fact that someone could talk with such excess.

It gave him useless information such as her parents working in a bakery. That she wanted to be a fashion designer, that she knew every constellation in the sky, and that she loved to learn new languages.

“I want to travel to all sorts of places. It’s never good to stay in one place and just learn everything from there. You miss out on all the fun stuff, and all the important stuff.” She said when he asked why.

The issue sprung up when she asked him questions. Why was he in Egypt:

“My mother comes here sometimes.”

What did his parents do?

“My mother is in the family business. We do commissions.”

What did he do for fun?

“I don’t get much time off, but I like going to cafes. I read a lot.”

What did he want to do when he was older?

“I would like to travel.”

“Oh! We could plan something together one day. I could show you Paris!” He nodded with a vague smile as she started to talk about the various sights of Paris. He had seen pictures, but he had never been. The Paris she spoke of felt more alive than the pictures. He hoped he got a commission in Paris.

She stilled, bright eyes seeming to dim as she stared out the window. He followed her gaze and identified the issue quickly.

He already knew that things were getting worse in Egypt, he travelled often across the country, and was not stunned by the sight of a burnt-out bus by the side of the road. It was common for tour buses to be guided to locations by army trucks, and he could tell this one was no different. It added a new layer of complicated to his task, but there was no hurry in his task. The issue would arise if someone else took down his target.

“You’ll be okay.” He said, patting her clenched hands. “I know how to get out a sticky situation.”

There was a strange clarity in her eyes.

“Are these things common?” He did not answer, but she could tell. Chatterbox though she was, she was not ignorant. Not terribly, at least.

He had not been to Abu Simbal alone and in daylight before. There was little need to wander to tour sites, least of all ones that could only be reached after an exhausting journey through the desert. Still, he could not help but pause and stare. The statues were enormous, the size of the cliffs they were built into, and yet it was only the entrance. One of the statues was completely destroyed, with only the legs remaining to suggest that it was there at all. He wondered if there was ever more of it, having not paid attention to the tour guide, and found himself focusing on Marinette’s expression. Like him, there was a glee on her face before she snapped a picture.

“Hey dad, take a picture of me and Qamar.” He jolted. There would be photographic evidence of him and felt himself bristle at Marinette’s side as she wrapped a hand around his shoulders.

“M-Mari- I don’t really-,”

“Hey, it’s okay! Just grin as wide as you can!” In a blind panic he did as he was told as the camera snapped, Marinette’s father laughing as he looked at the picture.

“I cannot tell if you want to murder Marinette or cry in this.” The former, but he hid his frown and pulled the scarf in a false gesture of shyness instead. Marinette stood on her tiptoes and leaned slightly on her father to look at the picture before slapping his shoulder.

“Don’t be mean, Qamar has a beautiful grin!” She mumbled something vaguely under her breath, but Damian could not catch it.

“I-it’s okay, just warn me next time.”

“If I did that, you’d immediately find something to hide behind.” A little smile appeared on his face; she was not wrong about that. He would have to destroy the camera before he killed her.

It did not settle well in his stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian starts to analyse the situation and finds himself struggling.

They left in the evening, and Damian made an excuse of staying in a different hotel in Luxor than Marinette and her parents. With a cheerful wave, she said she looked forward to seeing him the next morning. He made note of her father grumbling about the hour they would have to get up; three in the morning. It would be to avoid the worst of the heat and get to the tourist destinations before the crowds flooded in. He did not mind such an early start; he was used to long operations.

Damian abandoned the scarf and followed a good distance behind them. They were staying in the Sonesta St George Hotel, so he would do the same. It was an expensive place, but most hotels were, and if they were intending to stay the whole week as they suggested then that would be quite a lot of money just accommodation. They did not seem to be the wealthy sort, so they had clearly saved up for it. It was a shame their daughter would be dead before the holiday ended.

‘Drowning?’ He did not know if Marinette could swim; it would be too suspicious if she drowned and was an able swimmer. It might be easier to leave the window open and slip in a scorpion. Would they believe that she would leave the window open? She was thorough, from what he witnessed of her, and made a habit of checking everything multiple times. She paid more attention to the dangers of her environment than most; with better training she could have made for a good agent. He could not imagine her killing, though. Then again, no one suspected he could either.

It might be easier to terminate her on the open streets, but there was a greater risk of being caught and getting others involved. He was not allowed to simply bomb his way into the achievement; he could only kill his target.

No one saw him slip through the kitchens, taking some bread with him. He decided that, when he killed her, it would be easier to do so quietly in her room. The scorpion was, at the moment, the best thing he could think of. Poison would be detected and could be stopped and, more importantly, would bring about investigation. The sheer mess of something like that would get more than yelling involved. There was a chance he would be caned, and he was never a particular fan of pain.

Rooms 412 and 413 were theirs. Marinette had a room of her own; her telling him that it was because her father snored like a bear and it was a discount anyway. That was fine by him. Instead of going directly to the room, he wandered to the pool; the lights making it glow in the steady darkness. The fourth floor had balconies, and so did every other floor above that. He could scale it from the outside and sneak in that way.

‘Is there a way to get her to fall from the balcony?’ He mused, thinking of ways to destabilise the railing. The floor looked too solid, but the railing was not made of stone.

The room was abandoned, having checked the register to confirm that no one had booked it. No one would notice as he did not need a key. He was competent enough at lock picking that he could slip in with minimal effort, shutting the door firmly behind him so no one would know. He would have to keep an eye on registrations from then on, and knew he would have to avoid sleeping inside; too much risk of a cleaner coming in.

Damian could see up close that the balcony railing was made of metal and wood. Troublesome, as the wood was very solid, and the metal was embedded into the walls. It would take him too long to make the structure unstable, although there were some chairs in his balcony which meant that, perhaps, he could make it seem like she had climbed onto a chair and leaned too hard on the railing before slipping and falling to her death.

‘A possibility.’

He willed himself to sit down in one of the chairs. Not comfortable in the back, but the seat was soft enough; certainly better than stone.

He had taken a room that he could see Marinette’s room from clearly. Almost directly opposite her, but she would not see him as he did not use the lights. To her, it was just an empty room, but he kept to the shadows nonetheless as he brought out his binoculars. He doubted he would need them; he could see her moving about her hotel room well enough with all of the lights on; resting them around his neck as he ate his bread of the day. He wished he had taken some fruit.

He woke earlier than they would; one in the morning. It would give him time to prepare. Time to wash, time to change into his only other set of clothes, time to steal some fruit and, crucially, time to see the travelling route of the tour bus. He would have to know which hotels it stopped in before it reached theirs.

It stopped at two other hotels, and he would sneak onto the bus before the group reached the bus to pretend he had been at one of these hotels. Pinning the green scarf in place, hiding the fact that he obviously had short hair, he took his meal to the front of the hotel and waited.

Marinette was barely aware of her surroundings when she slumped in next to him, head hitting the seat in front of her as she looked eager to go back to sleep. In her hands was a packed breakfast that was slowly slipping out of her hands.

“Not used to early starts?” He said in a softer voice; Qamar’s voice. Marinette jolted into rigid alertness.

“H-hello Qamar! I was not sleeping!” He covered his mouth and forced out a girlish giggle.

“It’s alright, Mari, it is only three in the morning. If I could help it, I would be sleeping too.” Marinette let out a heavy sigh and slumped into her seat.

“Didn’t even get a good breakfast. There’s nothing sadder than a cold breakfast; there’s no love in it.” Food was food to Damian, but he made no remark as she opened up the box. “Ugh, apricots.”

“Not a fan?”

“I’m allergic.” That was information he could use, restraining himself from leaning forward.

“How allergic?”

“Hospital allergic.” He frowned slightly. While it could still be used, it would be difficult to sneak into her system and even more difficult to stop others from getting her to a hospital; there could be an investigation as well. It was likely she had an epi-pen as well. “Hey, don’t worry, I haven’t had an attack since I was six.”

“How long ago was that?” It would be too suspicious if she had an attack when her last one was so long ago.

“Well I’m eleven now-,”

“Wait, you’re eleven?” She was older than him. “But you’re so…” He quickly hid his shock, clamping his mouth shut.

“I know, I’m small.” She laughed it off, so at least she was not sensitive about the fact that she was a whole head shorter than him.

“I… did not think you were older than me.” He was genuinely embarrassed.

“Hey, not by much, surely?” He frowned.

“I turn ten in August.”

“Wow, you act way older.” He wanted to bite her. “If it makes you feel any better, I only turned eleven yesterday.”

He did not mean to flinch. He met his target, the person he would kill, on her birthday. He could not tell if the pit in his stomach was disgust or hunger, pressing his hand firmly against it.

“Here, you can have the apricots. You look hungry.” It was as though he had never said a single sentence in his life; he could not find anything to say to her. He silently took the bag of apricots and ate. They tasted like ash in his mouth; sticking like tar. If he chewed long enough, maybe they would pull the pit out of his stomach.

It was difficult to keep up the performance and Marinette could feel him withdrawing. She was good at reading people, and although she did not know what left him brooding, she became quiet over time. Worry was clear on her face, and she stayed close to him. The hand wrapped around his own was both a guiding light and a noose, and he could feel himself choking on it.

“Qamar do need to-,” Instead of responding, he swiftly let go and ran around the corner to throw up. He could hear Marinette running to catch up with him. She caught sight of him leaning against the wall and throwing up his breakfast. Breakfast was a hard thing to come by and he was upset to have lost it over nothing at all.

Were the apricots out of date? Was the bread? Sour sickness threatened to spill forward as he heard Marinette rummage through her bag. He was handed a napkin which he wiped across his face, trying to hide the evidence of his episode, but he could see it on the edges of his shoes and that only made him want to vomit again.

“Here, have some water.” He took it without looking, sipping. He wanted to down the entire bottle, but knew that would only make him sick again. Or burn his throat out. Damian did not resist when she slowly guided him away from the wall and towards a shaded bench.

The shadow of Marinette’s father came up close.

“Everything alright?” He asked, concern on his face. Damn his concern.

“Qamar’s feeling queasy.” He wanted to rip out her throat for the anxiety there. They had _no_ right to worry over him; he was going to kill her. He was going to kill their daughter and they were _worried_ about him.

“I got some Rennie chews.” He took them out of his bag and handed them to Damian. Damian could not look him in the eye. “Just crunch down on two and it should help. Best stay here in the shade until you feel better. Your mother around?”

“Sh-She was sick earlier. So I went on the bus without her.” He could feel the man’s frown, but still refused to look up.

“That was very irresponsible of you. Do you have her number?” He did and nodded. “I’ll let the tour guide know.”

“ **No!** ” He jolted, standing sharply. “I-I’ll be fine. I’ll just rest.” He did not want to be identifiable to the tour guide. “It’s probably what I had for breakfast.”

The man watched him for a moment. He was never intimidated by his height, but his eyes were as sharp as his daughters, and Damian had a distinct impression the man suspected him of covering something up.

“Alright, but if you feel sick again go straight to the bus.” He lingered for a moment longer before following after his wife who Damian saw watching them some twenty yards away. He sincerely hoped that they would not tell the tour guide. Curse his stomach.

“You don’t have to stay with me.” He told Marinette who still had her cool hands rested on his shoulders. They were supposed to be a comfort, but they only made him feel sicker. They reminded him of the fact that he was going to kill her. That he _had_ to kill her.

“It’s dangerous to be out here alone, and I know I’m annoying but I don’t think you’d like to be alone either.” He did not have the energy to protest. He wished he could tell her that he was going to kill her. That she needed to run as far away as she could and escape this country. To give her a head-start in escaping him; to fight with all of her might against the League of Assassins' top killer. 

But then he would die.

He would be labelled a failure for not killing his target and they would erase him. Either she died, or he died. There was no way to win it.

He could not understand why he felt so ill, then. Why her hands felt like heavy chains, why her voice was a knife against his throat.

Guilt was supposed to be beaten out of Damian as it was the other trainees. Weak trainees were culled on the regular, thrown into pits before the others to serve as reminders of what failure led to. Only the strong survived the League of Assassins, and he was certain that he was one of them. He had never hesitated before, never struggled. Killing came easy to him. Killing was his job, and he did his job well.

And yet his hands shook and all he could think about was that he was going to fail. That he was going to be killed because he could not think clearly.

That he could not kill her.

That he knew how, but he just

could

not

do

it.

The ground reached up towards him, and he felt his skull collide with its surface. Marinette’s voice came from underwater as everything slipped away.

He could only think of one thing:

‘I can’t do it.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can confirm that I did have to get ready to leave at 3am in order to get to some tour sites, fed only with a carton of orange juice and cold croissant. It was not a fun day, and the army trucks followed us everywhere.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian is faced with a dilemma.

Damian was alert before anyone could notice. Sharp eyes snapped into focus and immediately analysed his surroundings. He was lying on an artificial ground, it felt like plastic, in the shade of the bus which he could see on his left, and he could see that there were first aiders around him. Undoubtedly, the tour guide would have been informed and someone would have been made aware of the fact that he must have slipped into the wrong tour group not once but twice. Or, at least, that was what their natural conclusion would be. A sensible conclusion.

Unless they looked too closely at his eyes. Then they might suspect something more malicious.

None of them were looking his way, one mumbling to the other as he slowly rose. He was glad that the hijab was still on and had not moved to expose his hair. With the quiet movements of a trained professional, he slowly rose from the mat and began to shuffle around the bus to make a quiet escape. He needed to get away. Get away and think.

Damian still occupied the same hotel as Marinette and her family; it was better than lurking in a murky abandoned watch tower that was on the brink of collapse, but it did little to ease his disturbed thoughts. He was still close to the family to settle down and felt the foreign desire to pace. Pace or punch something: both inappropriate responses.

Had he been a year younger and a year dimmer he would have called his mother for help or at least advice, but he knew that if she was aware of his plight, she would inform her Highers. She would not do it with malice, he thought, but she would do it regardless and he very much liked to be alive.

His hand began to tap nervously at his side; an old habit he could never truly be rid of.

An hour of brooding thoughts, of spinning circles in his head that came to no conclusion, before he willed himself to still.

It was likely the proximity to the target that was making him emotional. Before, he never got to know his target. He followed them for a maximum of a day before terminating them, and very rarely was it necessary to get close; he worked well from a distance. With a steady sigh, he concluded that he would not be there to watch the scorpion kill her.

With such grim thoughts in mind, he waited for night to come. He sat in the tree just outside her hotel room, it only grew to the floor below her, and waited. The lush green hid him and protected him against the sun. Sweat clung to him like a thick tar, and part of him was aware of the fact that he did not normally sweat so much; that it was a suggestion of fever or perhaps something else, although he dared not think of the other. He did not feel guilt. He did not feel shame. Such things were irrelevant in the League of Assassins.

The cool air of late night did not help against it. A fever, he concluded, as he watched her bedroom window. Waited for the light to go out. And then he waited two hours longer. He could not afford to have her wake up and recognise him. That would be a complete failure. She would ask questions, and he did not want her to struggle. It made his skin crawl to think of her looking up at him and asking what he was doing there. To have her know that he was killing her.

‘Focus!’ He swallowed the lump in his throat and began to scale the building.

It was an easy thing to do for the sole fact that he would only be climbing one floor, but it felt like a challenge at that moment. His hands were coated in sweat and he could feel himself slipping even as he clung to the railing of the balcony above. If he had known, he would have worn gloves.

Her balcony doors were not locked, they never were, and it was far too easy to nudge open and slip inside, the doors not making a single sound as he closed them behind him.

Killing her should be easy. She was so pathetically vulnerable that he almost pitied her. A life so free of distress, of difficulty, that he could see her on the bed curled tightly to hug onto a toy cat. She acted like such a child-

She was a child.

Older than him only in age, and he felt like a demon looming over her like the shadow he was.

She was so small, and so easy to kill.

And yet he stood there, numb to the world, and just watched. The wooden box containing the scorpion held tightly in his hands.

A loud breath escaped her, and she nestled tighter into her teddy bear, her cheek squashed against the pillow and pushing upwards. She looked like she was smirking with her face like that, and he felt the ridiculous urge to poke her cheek. She showed no signs of hunger, no signs of maturity. She would likely look so babyish for a while to come; if she lived.

Which she would not, because he was going to kill her.

Kill her with the scorpion in the box in his hands.

And yet he still did not move.

He was aware of the fact that he was shaking, that he was hesitating. That all he had to do was open the box and drop the scorpion in her bed sheets. That he did not have to stay and watch.

He felt himself crouch; the box abandoned on the bedside cabinet.

It was only with a vague terror that he saw his own hand reach out to brush loose strands of hair away from her face. She did not awaken, thankfully she appeared to be a heavy sleeper, but his hand flinched away anyhow.

Even when he pulled away, he did not open the box. He did nothing to carry on his mission; he just stood like a helpless fool. Why was it so difficult to kill her? She was supposed to be an easy target.

He retreated from the room. He knew he could not do it.

He half thought of throwing himself out the window rather than confronting the issue head on but landed in the tree; his reflexes were still perfect.

The scorpion was killed, and he knew there was no turning back from his choice.

For now, he would not kill her.

He only said ‘for now’ under the hope that he would pull out of his madness before his deadline.

The next day he did not slink into the tour group under the guise of Qamar. He was certain that there were suspicions about him and the elusive girl he had pretended to be, but he did follow.

He should have done it from the beginning. There was no need to actually get in the bus in the beginning, he easily could have hidden in the luggage hold and tracked from a distance, and yet he had taken to sitting beside his target and making conversation. If he had known it would affect him so severely, he never would have done it.

Another part of his mind told him that if he was so severely impacted by conversation then it was hardly appropriate for him to be a part of the League of Assassins in the first place.

Distance did not help him. He saw her father being ripped off with cheap knick-knacks and saw Marinette getting lost in the crowd far too many times. He saw her parents taking pictures and not notice until they wanted her in the picture whilst she was fumbling around trying to get back to the group. She was not entirely uncoordinated in her efforts, but she was still naïve in asking adults for help. If she had basic training, she would have reached a higher place and searched for an escape that way; the way he did.

Instead she had stopped by the men with a group of camels and tried to speak very basic Arabic to figure out where to go. He clicked his tongue, recognising the men from previous operations. The sort that convinced pretty foreign girls to have a camel ride and then led them into the desert to be sold off. And she was talking to them. And they were convincing her to go with them.

He was off the rooftop in an instant and storming towards them.

“ _ **She’s not interested**_.” He snarled; his voice sounding even harsher in his native tongue.

“ _ **She sounded pretty interested to me. Fuck off, street rat.**_ ” They spat at his feet, but he dodged and began to pull away.

She protested, reasonably so, but he did not let go of her hand until he could no longer see them. By that point she had given up, and when he turned, he could see that she had immediately recognised him.

“Qama-,”

“Weren’t you ever told not to go off with strangers? Those are slave traders you imbecile! They would have taken you off into the desert and sold you off to the nearest rich, fat bastard and be glad for it!” A brief guilt took hold of him as she flinched with her hands drawn up to her face, tears pricking at her eyes. “Be smart. When you need to see where you are, get higher!”

He made to march away, knowing his cover was blown but finding himself unable to care. He was fully aware of how damned he was by that point and was certain that the League of Assassins would be notified. He did not care. They would kill him one way or the other, but he would be damned if he was killed over her only for her to be kidnapped and sold.

“Are you in trouble, Qamar?” He clicked his tongue again. She was entirely incompetent in so many ways. Incompetent enough to almost be kidnapped, and yet she had noticed that? “You ran away yesterday, and I heard my parents gossiping. They said that you weren’t in our tour group at all, that you weren’t registered anywhere, and that children couldn’t be on unsupervised anyway.”

He definitely could not return as Qamar. It was too dangerous now; they would investigate further. The situation was closing in on him, and he could feel the tension in his shoulders.

“Are you running from someone?” She asked, finally. Too clever. She was too clever. She would have made for a great member of the League of Assassins if this was her with no training. “Are they related to those men over there?”

It took him all of two seconds to come up with a story.

“I’m-,” He cleared his throat, trying to pull up Qamar’s voice. “I’m a runaway slave. They sent me on the bus to look for new resources.” He gulped. It was not difficult to show nervousness. “You. They decided you would do, but I- I couldn’t.”

He did not look at her once as he spoke. He was a good actor, but he worried in that moment that it would not be enough. That somehow, she would see his deception, see his guilt for what it truly was, and call on others.

“I couldn’t tell anyone else. This market runs far deeper than just those men. If I had been taken to the hospital I would be sent right back or killed. Or they would know I had failed and killed us both. Even now, we’re both in danger.”

She did not demand more answers, or scream, or cry. He did not hear scuffling, and when he finally willed himself to look up, she did not look angry either. Her brows were furrowed, her lips pursed. There was a quiet determination in her eyes despite the shake in her hands. He did not deny that she looked frightened, as she should, but she was not about to run away calling for help either. Instead, she forced her jaw straight and willed away her panic.

She would have been brilliant in his line of work.

“What do we need to do?”

For the first time, his discomfort settled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can confirm that I was almost kidnapped in Egypt by men trying to 'sell' camel rides into the desert. However I did not have Damian save the day, rather than my dad spotting me and carrying me back to the group. It didn't even register that I was going to be kidnapped until years later.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Marinette plan.

There was a certain degree of anxiety involved in group work. Damian would not necessarily call the task before him ‘group work’ seeing as it was just him and Marinette, but it was not independent and they had contrasting personalities despite a similar objective, and he had to keep a majority of the operation a secret from her lest she fall into a full blown panic and go screaming to her parents saying that her beloved companion was supposed to kill her at some point.

It was hard enough stopping her from doing so at the slavery story. It made sense that she would go to her parents, after all, seeing as she was raised in an environment where it was safe to do so and where adults were trustworthy figures. To hear the opposite, and to hear that to do so would kill them, and he did say kill, was extremely distressful and he had to sit awkwardly next to her for five minutes before the panic ended and she was returned to quiet determination.

It was hard to tell whether she was strong or weak based upon the violent contrast, but he hoped for strong as she wiped away her tears and asked what they had to do.

“First we need to know when you and your parents are leaving, and how.”

“I know we’re leaving in four days and I think it’s by plane again.”

“I thought you said you were leaving at the end of the week?”

“No, Friday. School’s back on Monday and I’m supposed to sleep off jet lag or something.” He nodded to himself, drawing his hand up to his chin.

“That’ll throw them off guard. They thought you were leaving on Sunday. Or, rather, that’s the deadline. Airports are very secure as well; it’ll be difficult to sneak in with any sort of weapon.” Not impossible, he reminded himself, but difficult and that would be enough to delay them when combined with them leaving before his noted deadline.

It would also give him a chance to slip away, although he knew it would not be by airport. He was too young to travel on his own, and he did not have a valid companion outside of the League of Assassins. Nor did he have a passport that they could not trace. Even the risk of booking a ticket was too high. He would have to find another means of getting out of the country.

‘The two-day delay should be enough to get me off the continent.’ He would not risk a refugee boat; he would be dead in almost no time at all on such unreliable dinghies, and he did not have the money for it either. At least, none that could be taken out without suspicion.

“You could use a cruise ship.” Marinette cut into his thoughts, as though reading his mind. Indeed, she was leaning forward with curious blue eyes. “They stop off at different ports, so if you have a clever disguise you could get off on any of them to get away.”

“It was what I was thinking of, but they have access to my computer. It’s one of the ways they’re keeping an eye on me.” He made note to get rid of his phone as well. It was not in his pocket in that moment, abandoned in a bag at one of the watch towers to give the illusion of spying on his target.

“If I have a look, I can mix it in with some other stuff like Nile journeys and… I don’t know, stuff.”

“If you can make it believable, although I don’t think they know we’re conspiring yet. Still, better safe than sorry in these situations…” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. He hated the situation, but he had put himself in it and treated it like any other operation. In a sense, it was the most independent he had ever been. He just wished his life was not in danger as a result of it.

What he would give to be certain his mother was on his side.

He left Marinette with a promise to meet up again that night, stating that he would not need a map to her room, although he would tap on her balcony window exactly six times before entering to let her know it was him.

Once again, better safe than sorry.

The remainder of the time was built covering his tracks. He did not take money out of his card but used what he had left. A chestnut wig, some dark brown contacts, even a pretty pink dress and new shoes. He did it all under various guises, and often just stole; the less he was remembered the better. His bag was abandoned in his stakeout room, and when it was all done there would be an unfortunate fire in the mosque next to his watch tower which would destroy the evidence of him having ever existed. He did not know whether there would be people there but, ultimately, he did not care.

It seemed as though his sharp clarity of the value of life did not spread very far.

When the hour hit nine in the evening, he abandoned his room once again and slipped into the tree just below Marinette’s window. He could wait another hour, be anxious about people seeing him, but he did not see anyone, and he was anxious enough as it was. Any longer and he feared he would die of a heart attack long before an assassin took him down.

As promised, he knocked on the balcony window six times and waited for her to answer. He could see the curtain shift and when she pulled it back her hair was down, and she was wearing rabbit pink pyjamas. It was so ridiculously her that it almost hurt to stare, and despite the grimness of the situation she was grinning from ear to ear.

“Hi.” Was all she said, and he said it back as he crept in, shutting the doors behind him and closing the curtains again.

He had to check the room over. He had to make sure there were no recording devices or secret cameras and checked behind and in everything. Marinette watched with confusion but when he gestured for silence, she was quiet. It was not until he was sitting on the bed that he explained what he was doing.

“Oh yeah, that makes sense. I just turned off the laptop.” She answered with a shrug. “Wrote it all down on paper and hid it.” She rolled so her head was tucked under the bed, pulling out a folded piece of paper. “I filled it with bright pink glitter, too! If someone opened it, pink glitter would splatter everywhere, and I would see it. And then I carried the only tube I had with me to dinner. I was only gone for fifteen minutes and I know there’s nowhere around that sells glitter in that distance. That way they couldn’t fill it back up! I have seen no pink glitter on the floor so far, so let’s see if there’s any here.”

She removed the tape and pink glitter spilled all over the bedsheets, her grin stretching even wider. He blinked in bewilderment. He was surprised, yet again, that she thought that far ahead; or had the skills to know such things.

“I had to hide my diary a lot.” She said it with a nervous laugh, and he genuinely wondered whether she had to hide it, or if she was simply paranoid. Either way, he was impressed and watched with such muted surprise as she unfolded the piece of paper.

He was not so surprised to see that it had been written in gel pen.

“Okay, so there’s four boats that leave Egypt and go to lots of different ports. They all go to at least five, but they’re really long journeys overall. My personal favourite is number three, but that’s because it stops in Barcelona, which is close to France. Not that I’m suggesting anything.”

He nodded quietly, finding himself drawn to that one as well. He would not admit it, but he had no intentions of simply parting ways when it was all said and done; it was with an aggressive determination that he concluded that he had to make sure Marinette was not killed by some rogue or reckless accident after he had abandoned his life for her. At least for a year, he intended to be around. Just to be sure that there was nothing more to it.

“If I take that one. There is a train from Barcelona to Paris. Three a day. They are supposed to take around seven hours, but it would be better to anticipate eleven hours.” He did not like the idea of public transport that he could be clearly seen in, either. Trains were crowded spaces, and there would be a greater difficulty in fighting if the situation called for it. At least he could hide in a boat until he was able to escape.

“I have a spare space under my bed. We could hide you there.” He frowned but did not vocalise his disagreement. It would be too close, and he found himself unsettled by the prospect of being caught off guard sleeping in her room. If not by assassins, then at least by her parents. He did not enjoy the idea of either and knew that he would be sleeping in uncomfortable outdoor environments for some time. “We also have a treehouse.” It was better.

He slept that night, knowing that the next three nights would be his last chance at a decent night’s sleep; though he got little more than five when he returned to the waking world and found himself staring at a pair of boots.

He recognised those boots.

He lunged forward, trying to topple her over with knife quickly drawn. The knife was held against her throat, slamming a foot onto one arm and pinning the other in place by the elbow with his other knee.

She did not put up a fight, and that only set his teeth on edge. He could hear no others in the room, but that did not mean they were not there. She had slipped into his room, and in that time, she easily could have set up a trap to kill him. There could be a bomb for all he knew. Maybe she had killed Marinette and was fully aware of what he had been planning.

“Hello, Damian.” His mother said to him, a lazy smile upon her face. “I must say it’s been some time since you’ve had a knife to my throat. The last time you did this we killed that stray dog you had become fond of.”

He snarled, and then realised his mistake. Showing emotions was dangerous, showing emotions showed weakness. He was giving her what she wanted, and he could see it in her eyes as he forced his expression into neutrality.

“I have always been able to tell when you are hiding secrets, Damian. I did raise you, after all.” He wanted to tear out her tongue but did not show it. Maybe it showed in his eyes, but his eyes were always so intense; it was the first thing people noticed. Constant anger. “You were lucky that it was me that was assigned to keep an eye on you, anyone else would have been you snooping about the girl and would not have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

He had seen no suggestion of her presence, but with the League of Assassins, with the true professionals, it was impossible to notice such a presence. He had been reckless the past couple of days with his anxiety; had let it cause him error. He cursed his past self, as he found himself doing regularly these days.

“So. Explain yourself.” The smile was gone. Any illusion of having authority in the situation was gone and he knew it.

He was terrified. How could he not be? The awareness of how abnormal his circumstances had become was shining clearly on his face, and he could not tell if he wanted to scream or cry; he had not done either for such a long time.

“You couldn’t kill her, could you?” He could see his knuckles turning white around the handle, and she could see it too. “You became attached.”

Barely there. A very faint nod. She said nothing, watching the anguish on his face; towards himself or the absurdity of it all was hard to tell. She watched him, could see his chest rising and falling with increased panic as he debated what to do. Even for her, it was difficult.

She, however, had more experience than Damian in dealing with such situations. A sigh escaped her.

“I would hate to kill my own son.” She could feel him becoming rigid. A very faint flicker as he looked at her hands for some sort of weapon. “I did not come here to kill you. I’m not that evil, although ask any of the underlings and they will disagree.”

With no effort at all, she pushed him off her and stood to full attention. He was like a terrified feral cat, immediately skittering towards the balcony in anticipation of needing to flee for his life. As was the clever thing to do.

“We both know that if I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already.” The lazy smile was back on her tanned face, watching him with no real effort. “How clever is the girl?”

He did not answer for a long time, trying to still his beating heart. Trying to hold onto the illusion of calm where there was none. She waited without a care.

“For an escape route she decided to create a false path on her own laptop, wrote the information down, filled the envelope with a specific type of glitter, hide the capsule on herself, then taped it shut and hid it in the bed. She did this after making sure there were no shops selling glitter within a travel distance of fifteen minutes, which was all the time she allowed herself to eat before returning. And when we had our conversation, she made sure that the laptop was off.” He stated, watching his mother nod in approval. “She did not check the room for cameras or recorders, though.”

“Very clever for a girl with no experience. That could be useful.” He wanted to snarl. He did not want her to be trained up to be a cold-blooded killer. He doubted she would even survive the training, and he did not want her to be thrown aside either. He would not accept it. “I have a solution.”

“She is not going to become part of the League.” He warned, and the smirk stretched wider on her face.

“Only in name.” He furrowed his brows, waiting for her to extend. “You’re one of our best assassins. To lose you over something like this is ridiculous on its own, to waste the potential of another is just as foolish. The whole point of this exercise was to show your independence, and you certainly exceeded in that task. Albeit, you did not do so in the way any other has done before.”

She shrugged, walking towards the vanity mirror. Her footsteps were light, almost inaudible, against the carpeted floor.

“No, I am rather proud that you got as far as you did. I only truthfully found out yesterday when you had your little bout in the market.” The slave traders. He should have killed them. He made note to do so later on. “You have been given permission to leave the continent independently under the illusion of training your own apprentice.”

He stilled.

“Pardon?”

“I am not saying you have to actually do it, but that is what I am telling the League. That you have found a suitable apprentice and will be training her up after having terminated your target.” He stared, dim confusion on his face. “An old man by the name of Aimer Mohammad. Since I was the only one to witness you choose your target, there will be no denying in it. As far as they know, that is who you need to kill tonight.”

The pin did not drop. There was no deception behind it, and he did not hear anyone come up behind him to kill him. Her smile widened.

“Of course, if you fail to kill him, you’re a failed assassin and the man will be killed regardless along with you, the girl, and her family.”

He knew better than to refuse his mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talia that is not how you raise a son. Is she genuine, or up to something? Stay tuned!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time ticks down.

Damian was young enough to hope that his mother was on his side despite her obsessive devotion to the League but experienced enough to have insurance.

He immediately let Marinette know of the situation, albeit far away from their rooms and a good distance away from any walls, with his own mouth covered as he talked lest they take to using the cameras to lip read. He indicated for Marinette to do the same and she did not hesitate.

“What’re you going to do if it’s a trap?” She asked, looking ill. He suspected that she could never imagine her own mother being so cruel as to purposefully send her to her own death and found himself smiling underneath the scarf as he spoke.

“If I pass away there are seventy-two hours before all of the data on my laptop is exposed to the internet, to every public press I could get access to. There are names. Names of clients as well as victims. It would be an extremely dangerous thing to do if I survived which is why it is only set to go when I am dead.” If it was exposed, she would know that it was assassinations that his family specialised in, but she would also be dead, so it was irrelevant. “There is a risk that I will simply not be able to access the laptop during that time, so I am adding extra security.”

In that moment, he brought out an electronic watch. That was how it appeared, and when he wrapped it around Marinette’s wrist it showed the time just as well as the one on his wrist. They were, for once, not connected to the League of Assassins being something that he tinkered with in his spare time.

“They are linked up to our heart beats and are waterproof and fireproof. So long as one of our hearts is beating, the information will not be leaked.” He tapped the top twice, and then tapped several times. It showed the time, the date, her heart rate (which was at 80BPM), and that his own was active. They would both know if the other died, although he kept the fifth feature a secret as she did not need to know that she could check on his heart rate as well as hers.

She was positively gleeful at the gadget, raising her arm high into the air to watch it glint in the sunlight. Part of him wanted to snap that it was not a toy and that it was their lives on the line, but he reminded himself once again that she was a child, and a naturally cheerful one, and that he was lucky she had been so cooperative throughout the nightmare that was the entire experience.

‘The sooner we finish this, the sooner I can rest.’ If he was retired from the League of Assassins, there was a chance that he would be able to sleep on a bed regularly instead of a mat on the ground. To toughen them up, was what he was told, and though it did make him tougher it also made him exceptionally foul in the morning.

“Do you have a plan for getting out if it goes bad? I mean except… this thing? You know, for when you’re-,” She waved vaguely with her hands, a frown marring her face.

“Dead.” Her frown only deepened, but she nodded. He did have a plan, his entire existence revolved around them. “Pig.”

“Uh… what?” He did not elaborate. Marinette stared for a moment longer, utterly baffled, before pressing her lips together and nodding with a face that was trying to be serious but looked more like a nervous rabbit. He hoped, against all things, that they were able to get out. That this was the opportunity it was led to be, and that he could vanish from sight. As good as his mother’s proposition sounded, even alone it was not enough for him. He had become greedy.

“In case I do not make it.”

“But you will!”

“In case I do not make it.” He emphasised again, struggling with his hands. It was with great reluctance that he took her by the shoulders. Physical touch was not something he was experienced in, and even that gesture was foreign to him. “My name is Damian Al Ghul.”

She nodded and copied his gesture.

“My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” They stepped back from each other and shook hands. “Well… I guess I’ll sleep now.”

“If I make it out, you won’t hear from me until I can find a phone outside the country, so unlikely for a week.”

“Right… cool. I’ll hear from you then!” She said it with a remarkable determination. As though it was absolute that he would survive. He wished he had the same certainty as Marinette. Viciously, she pulled him closer and into a hug.

He did not know how to respond to that. It was a one-armed embrace, her arm feeling so terribly fragile wrapped around his shoulders. He was not sure whether he liked it or not but let her do it with a vague thought in his mind that if he survived, he would at least take some of his mother’s advice and partly train her. He suspected that they would still pursue her even with his plan in mind, and he intended for her to at least be able to escape; doubting that she would be able or willing to kill.

“Stay alert until you hear back from me.” He said once she released him. She stood to attention and saluted, looking as young as she was. “Take care.”

“Copy that, captain!”

He did not sleep that night. He needed every second he could get for his plan, knowing exactly where he would kill his target, knowing from what building and through what means, and set everything up so it would cover his tracks, he hoped, perfectly. Pig was a rarity, and somebody might notice later on but, in that moment, pig was the closest one could get to human flesh and that worked out fine. A smile slipped onto his face as he step up the trap. He would not have much time to escape come the day, setting the alarm clock along the trip wire. He set it for evening prayers to delay the reaction. Damian was at least proud of the fact that he would still be able to take out his target so that if his mother was telling the truth then he was still abiding by the rules.

It was simple insurance.

He did not nap, as he settled into his position. He was away from the watch tower, far enough away to avoid what would happen, but high enough that he could see the tower with binoculars. He checked everything twice, then three times, and still found his foot bouncing up and down as he started the long wait. He had to make sure that nothing went wrong; there was no space for error, and even as he changed into his new disguise, he was always glancing out the window to make sure he spotted no one going into the tower to interfere. He was terrified, rightly so, that he had been witnessed and that someone would notice that he was not in the tower itself. That they would know the origin of the fire. That they would know the corpse was not human. That the teeth were not real. There were many things that could wrong, and they all played on a loop in his mind as he wrapped the dark cloth around his head. Everything revolved around the trap, and his disguise. He felt strange being taller than he was by another eight inches, but they would not expect it. They would think it too difficult to pull off well, but the amount of pacing he had done as he waited for the right hour made him confident.

The hour struck, the voice spoke up, and the door opened.

His time was up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was shorter than usual because I wanted to build up the suspense of what happens to Damian more. The next couple of chapters will be from Marinette's perspective.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perspective from Marinette's eyes.

Marinette had never experienced anxiety on such a level before. At her age, the most stressful thing that had happened to her were school tests and rumours. That was not to say that they were not stressful, she would never say that a maths test was not stressful, but it was never a matter of ‘you, your friend, and your family might all die if this goes wrong’ stressful. She doubted most people experienced that level of stressful and found it even more difficult because she could not tell her parents even as she was practically jumping out of the plane seat at the slightest of movements.

“Goodness, dear, you’ve been on enough planes by this point, it’s not going to come crashing down.” Marinette made an attempt at laughter at her mother’s playful scorn, but it came out strangled and she found herself fidgeting constantly knowing that she would not hear from Qamar, Damien, until long after she returned home.

That did not make the wait any easier, and when they got out of the airport, she was constantly checking her phone to be sure that he had not called her. More often than not, when she was pretending to look out of the car window, she was actually glancing at her phone waiting for any sign that he was alive. When the battery died, she tried to sleep, but would jolt back awake with a rushed panic that left her shaking.

It was night-time when they reached their home. When she looked at the clock on the dashboard it said 11:02PM. Despite the hour, it was still bright; the benefits of living in Paris. It at least meant that if someone were creeping around on the streets around their house, she would see them first. Even as she was carrying her suitcase back inside, she was constantly looking around for any secret assassin that would kill her entire family, and when the front door was unlocked she shifted to move out of direct view of it in case there was a man with a gun inside.

The lights snapped on and her mother let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s good to be back.” With a chipper tone, she lugged in her suitcase blissfully unaware of any potential danger as she set it in the hallway before going to help her husband. Marinette lingered for a little longer, half stuck between wanting to stay with the security of more people and wanting to investigate for any dangers before they got to her parents.

In the end, she used all of her arm muscles to heave the suitcase up the stairs without hitting the individual stairs, doing her best to walk as quietly as possible although her footsteps were far too loud for her own liking.

The corridor on the upstairs floor was too dark. She had to walk up three flights of stairs to get to her own bedroom and on each floor, there was a risk of someone hiding in the darkness. It did not matter how many lights she snapped on, she would not feel safe until she checked every crevice in the house and, unfortunately, her house had a lot of crevices.

‘Just focus on getting the suitcase to your room then you can check everything out.’ Another part of her said that it was the reverse, but with her suitcase abandoned at her bedroom door, she immediately retreated to the lowest floor.

“Are you looking for something, dear?” Her father asked as she searched every cupboard and every closet on the ground floor.

“Just seeing what we have!” She lied before moving to her parents’ room and bathroom on the next floor. Since her mother was in the bathroom, she swiftly checked the wardrobe and under the bed, and when she heard no noises of panic from the bathroom finally returned to her own bedroom.

Her bedroom felt darker than the rest of the house. It was difficult to explain, but it felt cooler, and the shadows felt thicker. Even with the lights on it felt profoundly out of place and despite the sounds of the city outside of her room it was somehow muffled. Buried under thick layers of tension as she stood at her own door hesitant to open the door.

‘Don’t be a wimp, Marinette, you need to open the door at some point.’ Her hand reached for the doorknob, shaking, and then she hesitated again. She vaguely recalled a story she had heard where someone had died because electricity was run through the doorknob, shocking the person to death. She was not sure whether she believed it, but she pulled her hand away. Pressing her body against the wall, she pushed the door open with force; waiting for someone to charge forth.

No such thing happened. Seconds ticked by and there were no sounds in the room. Cautiously, she peaked her head through the door. One issue with a floor door was that there was no nearby switch. She had to climb all the way through to reach her desk and turn on the desk lamp. Even if she was quiet, she had still given away her presence with her throwing the door open to startle any intruders, and as she quietly shuffled towards the desk lamp, she knelt close to the ground ready to roll straight back down the stairs if she needed to.

The lamp burst into life; the violent pink of her room almost blinding where more muted colours had become her every day.

She could see nothing nefarious. Still, she could not see her bed above her and listened longer for any sounds as she crept away from the desk, trying to get a view of her bed from the lower floor.

There was no one waiting in the bed for her.

‘But we don’t know if there’s anybody under the bed.’ She doubted it seeing as it was mostly storage for clothes, but she could not be sure. Before that, she checked behind her mirror, around the lounge chair, and in her trunk. There was nobody in any of them. A second longer before she crept up the suddenly fragile stairs to her bed, kneeling to open the storage and see if there was anyone inside.

There was no one under the bed.

‘Of course, there isn’t.’ She told herself, but her discomfort did not go away. There was still one more floor to check.

There was nobody on the balcony.

She could not rest despite confirming that there was nobody in the house. Once she was certain her room was secure, she set her phone to charge and checked to see if Damien had called her. There were no new messages. She had no idea whether he was dead or alive. Whether they were dead or alive.

She pulled at her hair, twirling it over and over again between her fingers before deciding that it would do nothing to help her. She needed to secure the house some more; it was too easy to sneak in. There were too many nooks and crannies, too many windows that were easy to get through. When Marinette went to her bedroom windows she confirmed this with all of them being unlocked.

‘They don’t even have locks!’ Her mind whined at her. She thought there was no way that someone would break into the house through the window, the thought never even crossed her mind that someone would want to break in. That only happened to other people, not to her family. ‘I need locks for the windows.’ She drummed repeatedly trying to figure out how to keep them safe until she got the locks.

They opened upwards, so if she could delay that in any way, she would keep from being caught off guard. After a moment, an idea came to mind and she retreated to her art desk. Knitting wool was already abandoned on the desk for later use, she had wanted to knit a hat before winter came along, and various pieces that could be sewn onto clothes were put into tiny boxes in a larger storage box. The small bells would work perfectly as an alert system, looping the wool through the bell holes. Seven for each strand then tied to a longer piece of wool. When she pulled it straight, the bells made just enough noise that she was confident it would wake her. It would at least startle the intruder, and it was with a sense of pride that she tied it to the handle of the window, pinning it to the furthest ends of the frame. She pulled the window down, then pulled it up again, the bells hitting against the sill and alerting her to the movement with a beaming smile. Satisfied, she shut the window and did the same to the other two windows.

That was her room partly secured until she got some locks, and after grabbing her phone to be sure she did not miss a call during her explorations, she retreated downstairs to confirm how many windows there were.

Eight on the next floor down, and five on the one after that. She was not particularly worried about the bakery itself because it had shutters and an alert system for anyone that broke in, but the back entrance they used led straight to the living room which meant it could go to the entire house, and it was only secured with a key.

‘Not safe at all.’ She wondered how she could bring it up. All she could do in that moment was shove something under the door to slow down anyone breaking in, which her mother saw her do.

“What’s that for, dear?”

“U-uh… uh…” She lingered, trying to think of an excuse. She could not think of one that did not involve someone breaking in. “Well, we have all that fancy stuff keeping the bakery safe, don’t we? But wouldn’t a robber just use this door to get in? I was hoping I could slow them down.” Her mother looked at her concerned.

“Where are you getting these thoughts from?” Her mother caught a lot of Marinette’s thoughts when she was upset; it was almost impossible to lie to her and her mother had been watching her the entire day as she became more and more worried.

“I… had a bad dream before we got on the plane, and I was scared there were robbers in the house so I… looked around.” Her father stepped in, finishing putting their stuff away but catching the end of the conversation. “And then I thought that just because they aren’t here now doesn’t mean they cannot break in later so I looked some more and if someone really wanted to break in, they could just use the door. They could even use the windows. We don’t lock the windows.”

She was not lying; she was just not telling the whole truth. It was not robbers she was worried about, and no nightmare told her to secure the house. It would have been easier to calm down if it were a nightmare, but it was reality and saying it out loud only frightened her further. Her father let out a steady breath.

“I can see why that would be scary. Nobody wants to imagine a criminal in the house.” He uncrossed his arms, reaching out to pat Marinette’s head. “Tell you what, dear, tomorrow we get some stuff from the hardware store and we make this place extra safe.”

It perked up her frightful mood, and she began to nod, her expression brightening.

“Now get to bed, it’s well past your bedtime.”

“Right!” She declared, retreating up the stairs. She did not miss her mother’s whisper as she turned the corner.

“Why would you tell her that? Now she’ll be paranoid about burglars her whole life!”

“Well I couldn’t tell her that nothing bad could happen. What would she say if it did?”

“It won’t!” Marinette knew better, and quietly continued to her room.

She did not sleep that night, the slightest noise jolting her back to consciousness in a city that was nothing but noise. Every time she awoke, she would check her phone again to be sure that there were no further messages. Like every other time she checked the phone, there was complete silence. She knew that she would not get any response for several days still, but she could not let it go. Setting the phone down, she checked the gadget that Damien had given her.

She tapped it. The time was 12:03AM. She tapped again and the date showed. She tapped again and her heart rate was 93BPM. She tapped again and the green diamond for Damien being alive showed. She tapped again to return to the time, but instead got a number. 131BPM.

‘That must be Damien’s heart.’ It was beating faster than hers. Maybe he was running. It was steadily climbing, and she wondered if he was running from the assassins. She wished she could help him from so far away, but all she could do was watch his heart rate and feel her own pick up. She watched it until it started to go down. Down and down it went after two hours, until it steadied down to 44BPM. Low, but not dead.

Maybe he was resting. Maybe she should do the same. She leaned back into her bed, watching the heart icon pulse until her eyes pulled shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi I'm Marinette and welcome to the anxiety show. Once again leaving everyone in suspense on how Damien is doing, but Marinette is still kicking and riddled with insecurities that totally won't come back to bite her in the arse.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For longer still, Marinette broods and confesses her problems.

It had been two weeks, and though the heart continued to beat, there was no word from Damian and Marinette swung violently between confidence that he was alive and biding his time, and that he was alive and being held hostage as she paced in her room.

The house had been well-secured. The windows now had their own locks on the ground floor, and she had managed to get them for her own windows which added to her alarm bells. Alarm bells that had become larger and louder after going to the craft store; the slightest movement of the window would wake her up now.

She had become creative in other ways when she heard her parents mumbling about pepper spray. Google was a blessing, although the sheer amount of cleaning was not decidedly not so, and she had to clean the equipment in a very specific way so that no one accidentally ate trace amounts of pepper spray or got it in their eyes. She had almost scratched her eyes far too many times and was glad for the goggles, and also the fact that she had made the whole recipe when her parents were out shopping, although they definitely questioned her when they smelled bleach. At least they were used to her creative spells and that was the only thing that they questioned.

Marinette had no idea how she would explain her thought process. Burglars was an easy explanation, but at the same time it did not emphasise the sheer scale of why she was on high alert, and the longer she thought about it the more she paced. She did not even know how she would explain the presence of Damian when he arrived.

That caused her to pause. She had not come up with somewhere for him to stay. Would he sleep on the streets if she did not have a place? She ran her hands viciously through her hair, causing several strands to come free from the baubles. Glancing at her mirror, she could see that she looked like a mad woman. It would make sense seeing as she lived in the attice; far too reminiscent of Jane Eyre.

She stared at the mirror for a long moment. Bags were starting to appear under her eyes, her brows were furrowed in frustration and she could see the tension in her shoulders.

‘You’ll be useless if you’re always panicking.’ She reminded herself, letting out an exhausted sigh before slumping on the lounge chair. She knew Damian could appear any day now. He could appear that night, and that he would need somewhere to stay. Paris was probably safer than his home, but that did not make it safe. And nobody wanted to sleep on Paris streets, anyway.

Marinette stared up at the ceiling for a long while. Her bedroom was open space. There were no closets to renovate, and the only hidden space was her own bed. She did not want to give up her bed and sleep on the lounge chair; she knew that it would hurt and, more importantly, it would be suspicious. And Damian could still be seen if you moved at the correct angle.

Her eyes drifted to her craft desks. Her brain began ticking.

‘If I alter the legs slightly, that can be a bed space.’ She began to grin.

Her parents saw her running about the house with various ramblings, holding a measuring tape and various fabrics. It was her father that stopped her.

“Have you got another costume idea, dear?” He asked as she started to make her way back to her room with her arms full to the brim.

“Secret bed!” She shouted down the stairs. He stopped kneading the bread, offering a glance to his wife. Sabine nodded with her head, a gesture of ‘go ahead’ as she took over his work.

With his hands dried, he knocked on Marinette’s bedroom door before lifting the hatch and coming in. She was crouched down on the ground measuring the side of her desk with a frown.

“So… what’s this about a secret bed?”

“Well,” She started, and though she did not look at him he could tell that she was coming up with an excuse. His daughter had a very particular way of moving when she was lying. “When friends come over they need somewhere to sleep, right, and a blow up bed is just uncomfortable and the lounge chair hurts your back, so I thought why not have something that’s a bed one moment and something else at another time?”

It sounded logical, but he knew that she was covering for something else. He could not, for the life of him, think of what that could be. Since they had returned from Egypt, she had been in an unsettled state. She spoke of robbers, but both he and his wife thought her reaction was blown way out of proportion for such a thing and, for that matter, entirely out of the blue. Her plans seemed to be more in preparation for an attack than anything else; like her life was in extreme danger. It was why he suspected that the secret bed was not for friends but, instead, for hiding. Hence secret.

He climbed all the way up, stretching to his full height before kneeling down next to Marinette. He could see clearly the bags under her eyes, the furrow of her brows and how she visibly bristled when he sat there.

“Is everything alright, dear?” She stilled. Eyes widened, mouth opening then closing and Tom half expected her to deny it and say everything was fine as her face twisted into a strained smile.

“I-,” She cut herself off, fingers twitching. He waited.

He waited for a full minute as she shifted.

“Qamar is running away from home because there are bad people there, and I said she could stay here for a while since the police won’t help her and she hasn’t got anyone to stay with.” It flowed easily enough, but once again Tom knew that it was not everything. It did not feel like a lie. Just part of the truth.

He remembered Qamar. Marinette had gotten along with her brilliantly. She was an awkward girl, always tense and with sharp eyes that were always eyeing someone up. He did not question it at the time, but he had suspicions that her life was troubled, which made sense with the tensions in the country. Still, when she mysteriously slipped away after passing out he had worried for the worst.

Thinking on it, it was around that time that Marinette’s behaviour became on edge. Qamar must have confessed to her challenging life around that time and Marinette, with her bleeding heart, volunteered their place as a refuge.

He did not sigh, but he did nod. It was not what he was expecting, and there would a great deal of trouble involved in the situation, but if Qamar was running away from home and coming over there was not much he could do, especially considering the fact that he did not even know her last time.

“We’ll have to tell your mother, you realise.” Marinette did not look at him, but nodded anyhow.

“I didn’t want to say anything because Qamar said it was really bad and didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“I know, dear.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. She was so terribly small. “And you wanted to help. You’re not in trouble for that. But we’ll have to tell the authorities. She can’t stay if she doesn’t have permission.”

“But what if they send her back?”

“They won’t.” He said it with a smile, but he did not actually know. He would have to read up on the laws to know what they needed to do. He knew that the rules had changed recently, and he could see that Marinette believed him less, and that she was already planning for it. He patted her shoulder a few times. “Design a bed space and we’ll do it proper, instead of you hiding it under the desk.”

Marinette did not drop her plans for a secret bed and when she came into the kitchen later that afternoon to her parents looming over the laptop, she had all but a manic idea in mind as she slapped it onto the table.

“Okay, so I was thinking of using the shape of my room to really hide things out.” It jolted them out of their conversation. On the paper she had the curved shape of a part of her room drawn in thick black, and then from the roof to a straight angle down there was a dotted line. It made the entire wall flat, concealing the curve. She had drawn it from another angle. The circular window would be within the hidden space, as well as the entire area where her lounge chair currently was, as well as her trunk.

“That… takes up a lot of space, Mari.”

“That’s okay, I won’t need the chair.” She paused. “If we put it in front of part of it, it can hide the door hinges too!”

Sabine glanced to her husband before speaking.

“Mari… I know that you are worried about Qamar but… isn’t this a bit much?” Marinette blinked. Once, twice, three times, and then grinned.

“Oh no this isn’t to hide them from secret assassins or something silly.” She laughed. “I just think that maybe Qamar would like her own space. Plus, I don’t know if she snores.”

Sabine watched her daughter like a hawk, silently confirming to herself and to Tom that Marinette was definitely hiding the finer details. She had a sneaking suspicion that the situation was significantly more complicated than they thought, and that if Marinette was so determined to bury it then perhaps the girl in question would tell them what was happening.

They would have to tread carefully before taking action.

‘Well it’s not like she technically has to apply for citizenship until eighteen anyhow.’ There were bigger issues, certainly, but they needed to know what was happening first and they would be getting no such answers from Marinette. Every time they got close, she danced into an entirely separate matter. And none of her answers were illogical.

“We’ll have to move your staircase to the other side.”

“The railing too.”

Marinette was always independent in her own ways. It made sense she would be involved in the project seeing as it was both her idea and her room, but it was staggering how little help she required at the same time.

Tom helped to set up the basic shape, solid beams being needed to keep the whole thing together. Marinette was content with wooden walls but was soon mumbling about hiding the change with plaster so it could be painted to match the rest of her room. The plans showed that the doors would be part of a fancy wardrobe; she insisted it was so that the space was tall.

That required a trip to the furniture shop and a lot of bolts; she was not involved in that at least, but she watched closely as her father put the wardrobe before setting it in front of the space.

He knew that there was more to it, and when he joined her the next morning he found that she was already wide awake and had removed the back of the wardrobe and had already mostly decorated the space behind it. She had used the old lounge chair as a base but had sawn off its curved walls and had added an extra mattress on top. On the opposite side her mirror was hung from the wall, and her trunk had been pushed right to the side and was in the process of being painted.

“Eager to get to work?”

“Yup.” She did not take her eyes off her work. Sitting next to her was her laptop, and on it he could see multiple Arabian designs that she was attempting to mimic.

There was no more building after that, so her father left her be. At least, she did not show any more work on her plan, but when he left, she stopped painting and crawled out of the space. She was not done, of course. The wardrobe back panel could be lifted and the space behind investigated by a would-be criminal easily, so she thought of another plan.

It was not much, but more panels would make the space seem smaller and less than it was. No one would see the bed, which was the real secret space. You were more likely to be attacked if you were sleeping; that was what happened in all scary stories.

She had taken forever to figure it out, but eventually she managed to create a door that looked like a wall. She almost wished it was a bookcase, but the door was thick enough and she would not be able to explain having lost so many books.

Two thinner boards were glued together, but part of the top one had been removed to make it easier to pull open and when the hinges were screwed into the wall, she found that it opened smoothly. There was a lock on the other side, of course, so that it did not seem to move on its own. Although if they pulled there would be resistance.

When night came, she removed part of the wall on the bed’s side. If Damian needed to sneak away while someone was searching the secret space, he would have to get next to the bed and crawl into the hole and into her trunk, then climb out into the open.

‘Maybe I should have a sliding door or something there?’ There was no space for it. Perhaps a curtain, instead. She huffed, but she was all out of ideas. She climbed back out and lifted her mirror, hanging it on the fake wall and nodding to herself. With the mirror out of the way, the enclosed space was tragically empty beyond the trunk. It was drying for now, but she hoped Damian would like it. ‘I should put a chair or something in here.’

The old light was left inside, along with some spare pillows and a few fairy lights. Anything to make it seem less like a prison cell. She huffed; it would have to do.

With a nod of confirmation, she lifted herself up into the wardrobe and set the back wall in place, about to open the wardrobe doors when she heard the distinct sound of bells.

In an instant, everything froze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you all ever heard of Swedish cupboard beds? I want all of them. Thank you for reading so far!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette puts herself into action.

Every muscle in Marinette’s body became rigid, her teeth clenched together as, in a single second, she found herself wishing she had brought the pepper spray with her. Another measure of safety forgotten because she had let her guard down. Of course, they could come at any moment, she was naïve to not bring it with her, she should have trained herself to bring it everywhere, even the bathroom.

It would be suicide to look through the closet. The first place she would check, if she were an assassin, would be the closet. With this thought in mind she, oh so quietly, shuffled out of the wardrobe and back into the hidden space, putting the false back wall in place. She needed time to think, but she did not have time. She needed time to panic, but she did not have it.

‘The box.’ Keeping her eyes focused on the wardrobe and listening out for any other noise, she slowly opened the door to the bed behind her. Glancing between the bed space and the wardrobe, she slipped sideways through and shut the door, latching it in place; she was glad she had not added a proper lock as she feared it would make too much noise.

Seconds passed and she heard no further noises, but she did not believe that the threat was gone. She would not believe it gone until she checked every corner of the house for the slightest of changes. Kneeling, she crawled into the trunk. Only partly, knowing that she would need to put some sort of cover in the back part. Maybe even a fake bottom to make hiding better. As she crawled into it, she also decided she needed eyeholes that could be covered up, but that would do her no good if she messed up in that moment and was killed.

Another second, ear pressed firm against the wall of the trunk. Not a single sound could be heard. She waited, and waited and, ever so slowly, she lifted the trunk lid. Not by much, not the amount that she would consider noteworthy. Perhaps only a centimetre.

The figure that stood in her room was not Damian.

She could tell immediately.

Too tall. They had dark hair and a red leather jacket on, and they were looking through her art drawers. She could see from her space that they were armed. She could also see that they were right next to her pepper spray; her only salvation. She needed to get them out somehow.

She found her fingers twitching. She had nails on her, but from such an angle she could not throw them. She needed some sort of slingshot.

‘Of all the times to not have a rubber band.’ She would have screamed in frustration in any other circumstances.

She unconsciously went to run a hand through her hair and paused.

Her baubles had rubber in them. She did not even need to throw a nail, there were two pink plastic balls attached to each bauble; it would make enough noise on its own.

There was still the matter of angle, and what she would do once she had gotten the person to look the other way. The pepper spray was still far away, and it was still an enclosed space.

Before she could run herself into further circles, the person turned.

She had Damian’s eyes.

Marinette remembered Damian being suspicious of his mother’s claim of protection. The woman had his eyes, but they were colder. Crueller. There was a sharpness to her face that she thought perhaps Damian would grow up to have, but the jagged cut of her cheekbone gave her a wicked shadow as she looked around the room.

The woman, almost lazily, lifted her wrist and looked down at her watch and tapped it a few times.

It was not a watch, and it was with a steady, frozen terror, that Marinette recognised the device as Damian’s. Had Damian ever been alive? Or had his mother been involved in killing him?

She was shaking, she wanted to lash out and claw at the woman. She would have had the right to do it, but instead she clenched her hands together and watched the woman smile as she slowly went to close the trunk again.

“Damian did not tell me much about you, Marinette.” The woman was not looking at her, but she knew that she was somewhere in the room, and soon she would start investigating. The way she drifted about the room as though it were hers set Marinette’s teeth on edge. “Your records did, however. A very bright young girl who adores art, parents are bakers. I did love the cinnamon rolls downstairs.”

It was a mocking tone, and Marinette wished she had known when the woman had entered the shop. How long had she been watching, hidden in plain sight? Or was it recent? Had she only just come in, bought something from the baker, killed her parents, and walked in?

“The alarm bells are highly creative; I never would have thought to have done it myself. And at ten-years-old with no training. You have a great deal of potential; we would have loved to have had someone like you with us.”

Marinette slowly shuffled out of the trunk. If she survived, she needed a false back to the trunk as well. She knew that if the woman opened the trunk, she would find the bed, and if she opened the wardrobe, she would check the back as well. She glanced viciously between the two, tears starting to stain her eyes. No matter what she did, it was wrong. The woman could wait in there for as long as she pleased, and eventually she would figure it out.

“The pepper spray is certainly innovative, but it is not nearly strong enough to actually stop somebody in their tracks. If you wish to pursue that method, you will need an extraordinarily strong pepper oil.” The woman continued to speak as Marinette shuffled into the smallest space; stuck behind the wardrobe back wondering what she was supposed to do.

In a moment of madness, she glanced to the large circular window behind her. She had intended to put a curtain over it, so it was less obvious as a hidden room, but in that second, she wondered why she had never checked to see if it opened.

She knew that she was small enough to fit through it if it did open. The roof was sloped at a good angle with a ridge at the bottom. Technically she could climb to the bottom of the house, or hide up on the balcony, but it still did not deal with the problem of a strange woman in her room.

‘But if I move to the next floor down, I could distract her by moving the attic door.’ She could alert her parents if they were alive, or in the house, but she was not sure how the woman was armed. She could have a gun, and that disadvantage would mean that her parents would just be in danger. Worse than that, she would be able to see them coming. Her father was the opposite of sneaky, and the attic door needed to be lifted.

She could not do anything if the window did not even open. Leaning on the wall, she watched the wardrobe as she fumbled along the rim of the window trying to see if she could push or pull it in any direction.

It gave, pushing outwards. A frightful grin settled on her face as, for a single instant, she felt herself succeeding as she turned and pulled herself through it. She silently made a note to put a lock on the window if she survived so no one could sneak in.

Marinette paused. There was an unfamiliar car in the front of the bakery, and two figures waiting outside, one leaning against the car with a cigarette in hand. None of them looked friendly, and she had a suspicion that they were associated with the woman. It made sense to keep an eye on the front of the house to make sure she did not escape so obviously. If she stayed where she was, eventually someone would notice and look up; especially because she was wearing bright pink. She tried not to make too much noise as she climbed onto the balcony.

There was one benefit to the balcony that was not planned, and it was that the back parts were mostly covered. One side was a small brick wall for a few plants, and the other side was a waterproof sail with a sunbathing chair set in place. It gave her cover from their view, but she crouched down nonetheless just to make sure that they were the only suspicious people in the area.

A blessing that they were. From what she could tell; she could easily be wrong. After all, they were assassins. She hoped she was correct as she wondered how to deal with them as well as the woman downstairs.

With a bit more freedom, she knew that she could sacrifice her small tree. It was heavy, the pot adding to its weight, but that was fine for what she intended. She just needed to get the woman to step through the balcony hatch.

She lifted the pot into her arms and struggled to lift a foot. For once, she intended to make a noise, but not an obvious one. The sound of a stumble. That would get the woman to investigate, and when it happened, she would drop the entire tree on her head.

Brilliant plan.

She waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Her arms were beginning to struggle with the tree as she checked every window and the door. Waiting, waiting, for the woman to slip up.

She heard a noise behind her. She had heard it in all sorts of action movies. The sound of a gun.

An instant was all it took for her to twist and throw with all of her might.

Marinette did not know panic could give her such strength, the tree, soil, and pot thrown full force as the woman behind her and throwing her off the chimney stack and onto the roof below.

It took another instant for Marinette to not throw herself onto the street but scramble through clumsy feet onto that roof and latch onto the woman like a feral kitten, all teeth and claws as she bit hard on the woman’s wrist and fumbled with a gun she had never seen in person, better yet used, yet found herself pointing at the woman’s throat with shaking hands.

“You can’t shoot that with the safety on.”

“I can still beat you to death with it!” She was obviously crying, and the woman seemed half stuck between awkwardness and impressiveness as she kept it aimed at her.

“For once, I’m not here to kill.”

“I don’t believe you; you have Damian’s watch.”

“He is alive, you realise.”

“You have no proof and I will still beat you to death with this.”

“I do have proof just let me-,” The woman moved her hand and Marinette immediately grabbed it as though she had the strength to stop her. The woman sighed. “In my pocket is my phone. You can see that I contacted him recently on it.”

Marinette reached into her pocket with cautious fingers, pulling out the phone. It was locked, obviously. She dropped the phone onto the woman’s lap. Slowly, the woman lifted her arms to unlock it. Marinette was silently aware of the fact that if the woman wanted to tackle her and get the gun back, she easily could have done it by that point. She needed to google guns as the woman passed her the phone.

“No. Call him now. Put it on speaker.” The woman blinked. “Now.”

“Thinking ahead.” The woman mumbled as she turned on the speaker. Marinette could hear the dial, the number being called. She waited, still tense, as the woman finally smiled. “Actually, how about we meet him in person.”

She felt a weight on the back of her head.

Of course. The men downstairs would have heard the scuffle and would have investigated. She had been too focused on Damian’s mother. Another mistake to add to a growing list. Marinette knew that she had lost, that no matter what happened then, she was going to lose.

So, it was fair that she immediately punched the woman’s jaw. She was promptly pulled back by the collar of her shirt by the man, but it did not stop her from trying again. The fact that the woman laughed only made her more determined and she struggled the entire time to try and claw her way to freedom all the while the man was not phased. They even took the time to shut all the doors behind them, and the woman had left change on the bakery counter for a bag of muffins with a delightful note in Marinette’s writing saying she was going to the park and would be back in a couple of hours.

Before she was shoved into the car, her face was sprayed and in an instant she was out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait y'all thought I'd go for the stereotype of "oh it was Damian sneaking in"? Have y'all not seen what a bastard I am?


	9. Chapter 9

Consciousness was a slow, sluggish thing that dragged across the folds of her brain, pulling at her senses. Feeling came first, and the first thing she felt was a dull ache in her head and her arms. Her first instinct was to move, but as she became more aware, she ceased. In movies, she was always told that the person did not become aware of their circumstances immediately, but her mind was clear and she was fully aware of what had happened to her in the last minutes of her own awareness. She knew to keep pretending to be unconscious, in hopes of finding out what was going on.

Hearing was quick to follow, and what she heard was limited. She heard traffic, she heard it muffled and knew that she was likely inside a car itself. She was on her side, she knew that, and the surface she was on was hard and uncomfortable. Whatever she was on, it was not a car seat.

‘In the boot?’ She licked her lips, the unconscious urge to pull at her hair taking hold. Marinette was terrified, as she ought to be, being shoved into the back of a car with her hands bound together. She also knew that most car boots had an escape handle in case someone was locked in the boot of the car. She wondered if it was some sort of test, twisting her hands in their bindings to feel for what they were.

Handcuffs. They rattled slightly. With a steady breath, she thought on what to do. The fact that there was traffic around meant that if she got the boot unlocked someone would see her if she got out. There would be witnesses, she would have that as a protection of sorts. The car moved forward with traffic. She tried to focus on her breathing.

If she were to escape the back of the car, she would have to do it will the car was still, or she would simply be thrown into traffic; she could not jump out. She would have to time it with red lights. She would have to run fast; they would notice the back of the car spring out.

That was if the unlock was still there.

She rolled onto her other side, her body violently protesting. Marinette felt out for the middle of the boot door.

It was just her luck that there was no such handle. They would not make it so easy. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry. She wanted to do a lot of things. Damian in her head told her she could do that after she escaped.

‘Okay, Mari, what now?’ She knew she was hyperventilating, or on the cusp of it. Marinette had never been kidnapped before, and she had never come close to such a situation. Until the incident in Egypt, she would say that she was incredibly unaware of what to do in such situations. It was always believed that such things happened to other people, but not to her family and not to her. ‘Okay okay okay, we’re going to breathe first. We’re going to breathe and then we’re going to kick out the taillights.’

It was all she could think of. After all, someone would notice them being kicked out and if she waved a leg out there. She could possibly get a hand out the hole. Someone would see the car and tell the police and the police would stop the car and she would get out then. She would run to high hell because they would kill the officer if he were alone, but she would run, and she would run fast.

She waited, steadying her breathing. She needed to be calm for when she needed to run. She breathed in. One. Two. Three. The first kick missed its mark. She waited. No response, no noise as they kept driving. She kicked the light, and again, and again, kicking with as much strength as she could muster in the closed environment. Her leg almost went through the hole on the fourth try.

‘Success!’ She scrambled forward, rolling on her side to stick out a hand and part of her wrist, trying to wave to the people behind her. Trying to get someone’s attention. Someone had to be out there.

She did so until she heard sirens. Freedom. Freedom was so close. She pulled her hand back in when the car stopped, waiting and listening. She heard the car door open and slam shut, she heard footsteps. She heard voices. One was the officer enquiring about the broken taillight.

‘Come on, come on, just open the door. Open the door now!’ She would have screamed. What would have happened if she screamed? It would only get attention.

But she needed attention.

She licked her lips and let out a loud screech, the loudest she could muster. She kicked the boot door. She screamed and screamed, and she heard the scrambling of footsteps. She had gotten them. Marinette stopped screaming, listening to the scuffle.

And then there was a quiet.

It pulled on for far too long. Had she lost? Was she going to die now?

She counted the seconds.

It was thirty-four before the door was open and she lunged forward, determined to escape even if it were her kidnappers.

Marinette did not feel sorry for knocking Damian’s mother over again, headbutting her neck as she ran full force into the road trying to escape. Her handcuffs were grabbed, and she was pulled back by an unfamiliar man. She screamed and yelled, trying to make a scene as much as possible. Make sure they were all remembered. Even if they took her, she wanted them to regret every second of it.

She bit someone’s finger; she did not remember whose. She had to be muffled. She was not rendered unconscious, and she was not thrown into the boot again. She immediately made to start another fight.

“Keep causing trouble and I kill your mother first.” She froze. “It would be a shame, seeing as my son put so much effort into making sure you and your family stay alive, for you to kill them because you did not know how to calm down.”

She grit her teeth. She wanted to snarl and bite again. How dare the woman threaten her family?

“That is a very Damian look in your eyes. Keep it, it may keep them alive still.” They kept driving. Marinette only just saw the puddle of red in the front mirror. It seemed more vibrant when the red light spun around. She wanted to throw up, but she had nothing to throw up. The officer was dead, and Marinette had killed him. The officer was dead because she kicked out the taillight and thought to herself that an average police officer could help her. These people killed. She knew that. She had been warned against it multiple times, she warned herself against it. She knew that whoever she called for help would be in danger and yet she did it anyway. French officers did not have guns. One officer could do barely anything.

‘Calm down, calm down, you were thinking calmly. It was just the wrong choice.’ The wrong choice. The wrong choice that led to a dead body they were driving away from.

“What do you want?” Her voice was bitter, and terribly frightened though she pretended it was not. She pretended she was fine. That her family was not being threatened with death.

The woman did not answer immediately, though she was not driving.

“My personal objective: get you and my son away from my father’s watch.” Marinette squinted her eyes in judgement. “My father is the head of our community, I am his heir and my son is my heir. Whatever story Damian told you, I doubt it included him as the future leader.”

Marinette did not let her face show a response, although she imagined that her cheeks were very red. Part of her was angry, rightly so, but the other part had an idea of why Damian would not say anything. The stronger part was angry.

“My goal is to get him to his father, who is not a part of it, and ensure he is forgotten. In turn, that means that you will also be moved. After all, he refuses to do anything until he is certain you and your family is safe.” She said it in such an unpleasant manner Marinette was half-tempted to spit in her face. “I can assure you his reaction was just the same as yours right now, I am my father’s daughter, after all.”

“I don’t believe a single thing you’re saying.” Her hands were twitching, she wanted to pull at something. Her entire body was shaking.

“You don’t need to, but I would recommend pretending that you do when you do meet my father who we are seeing, since he decides which of you will die.” That part Marinette did believe. She watched the woman for a long time. “Convince him you’re not a threat, that you want to join and that you are being trained by Damian. That was the lie Damian told him, now you play your role. Whatever Damian says, please follow through.”

“Why should I do anything you say?” Marinette spat back. The woman did not look back to her, but Marinette could still see her olive-green eyes in the mirror. Could see how they looked off to the side and looked… hesitant.

“I never liked killing children. And I would hate to kill my own.” That Marinette also believed.

She was quiet for the remainder of the journey, and no one else spoke. The driver was the only other person in the car. He wore sunglasses and had a severe face, and a nose that was crooked. She watched the traffic and the scenery go by, trying to figure out where she was. A passing sign said Paris was 105 miles away. How long had she been unconscious?

Marinette started thinking about her parents. They would have seen the woman’s message and might assume she was still out, but they would think it very strange of her. Weeks of paranoia and suddenly going out on her own? Would they try to call her? Had they done so already? She never did not answer a call. Were they even alive, or was the woman making false threats? Her foot began to tap. She did not know what to do, she had not planned for this, _could_ not plan for this. If she had been offered food, she knew it would not go down.

An hour of driving later, they came upon a building in the countryside Marinette did not recognise. An enormous white hulk of a building in a Rococo style, all the grandeur of the French elite carved into the front design. Gravel crunched underneath the car as they pulled in, and for the longest time they simply sat there.

“The meeting is in ten minutes. You will have your hands unbound and you will be dressed in the appropriate suit. Damian will be in the same room as you, use this opportunity to get the story correct. If you get it wrong and get my son killed, I will kill you myself.”

“You’re the one that left him here.” Marinette willed herself to say as she was pulled out of the car.

“We do not always control the circumstances in which we live.”

“You had ten years.” The woman began to walk, and Marinette was nudged alongside her.

“I know.”

If it were another, less dire, situation, Marinette would be gaping at the details of the building. The ceilings were painted with the heavens above, the walls lined with rich tapestries and the floors with Persian carpets hiding dark wood floorboards. Expensive vases and velvet curtains, it was austere and altogether boastful in its wealth. If she had her phone, she would have taken pictures for inspiration.

It was not another time, and with her mouth clamped shut she was looking for exits, not that she was able to look around much. Many doors were closed shut, and she saw no signs for fire exits. They would not make it so easy for her. Would she even be able to climb out of a window?

“I know that look and I suggest you stop. My people would not hesitate to kill you if you tried to escape.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said in a way that meant she knew exactly what she was talking about. The woman almost smiled.

They came to a stop outside a door that looked like all the other doors.

“Remember, you have ten minutes. Do not waste it.” Marinette could walk in on her own.

The room had magnolia walls and bare floors. There were partitions of various delicate patterns and in the middle was a table upon which were two sets of clothes. She imagined one was the suit the woman told her she would have to wear. She hesitated but moved quickly once the reluctance passed. She had only ten minutes. Ten minutes to plan, ten minutes to escape. She checked the window.

“They sealed all the windows, I already checked.” She had almost forgotten what he sounded like. Rough, gravelly, with a faint accent and no lack of calm in his voice. She should have looked for him first, seeing him step out from behind one of the partitions.

Marinette found it difficult to turn away.

Blood was splattered across the school uniform he was wearing, and it had touched across part of his cheek. There was little doubt in her mind, then, that he did kill. He lingered on the spot, looking decidedly awkward. Neither moved for the longest time.

“I am sorry I did not tell you everything.”

“No, you aren’t.” He was not. She suspected that he was only sorry that someone else had told her, and she could not necessarily blame him from hiding it. It was horrifying, it was terrifying seeing him looming on the edge of shadows covered in someone else’s blood, but gratifying seeing him looking away with reddened cheeks. Red as her angry cheeks, she imagined.

She had ten minutes. She looked away, trying to focus on the suit.

“Your mother said that she is the heir of this whatever thing, and you are her heir.” Marinette willed her leaden tongue to speak as she unfolded the pieces. She knew how to put most of it on, but she never learned how to tie a tie.

“Did she say what we do?” Damian had shuffled closer, making his footsteps loud enough for her to hear him come close. Probably so she would not be so startled.

“No, but you did.” Rightfully scorned, he picked apart his own suit. There was a silence between them. “Damian be honest with me, please. What is going on?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. She could see his fingers twitching.

“We are… meeting my grandfather who is the head of the League of Assassins. We kill because we are trained to kill, and because if you do not kill you are killed in turn. I failed to kill my target because I… did not want to, and as it is, I am trying to justify you staying alive.”

Marinette knew she was crying, and she knew Damian did not know what to do because his fingers moved away from the blazer as though to touch her before he pulled away. She sniffled, trying to wipe away at her tears that kept spilling.

“I’m sorry.”

She punched him, hard. He yelped. He should; she had a strong punch. He flinched away in horror, clutching at his punched arm.

“You deserved that.”

“I did.” She rubbed at her eyes again, willing them away. After a moment, she unbuckled the braces of her dungarees. She needed to get into this suit. She pushed the fear deep down. She buried it with the anger and grief. She would scream at Damian if they survived. She could be angry when they were safe.

“So, what’s our story?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Managed to update after seventy odd years, sorry for the huge delay I hope you enjoy!


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